By Val Maloney & Jennifer Horn

You may notice more mustachioed men walking around this month, growing facial hair to support prostate cancer awareness and research. And brands have jumped on the bandwagon, supporting Movember, which has grown to over 1.1 million participants worldwide since its inception in 2003 in Australia.
It’s only natural that men’s grooming products would associate with the cause, and there’s perhaps no brand more appropriate than Schick Hydro. The Energizer Canada razor brand worked with agency 6degrees to create a Facebook tab that invites consumers to upload their photograph and download a “License to Grow,” whereby guys (or gals) can put a fake moustache on a picture of themselves to show what they plan on growing (or wish they could). Schick has placed ads on its website and will be reaching out through its social media channels and flyers in Shoppers Drug Mart stores. The first 10 days after launch saw over 5,000 unique visitors to the Facebook page.
And Speed Stick knows growing a moustache can be uncomfortable, but it’s saying “Don’t Sweat it” with its new digital campaign. The campaign centres on videos housed on Speedstick.ca of a 20-something man sporting a ’mo who gets into some hairy situations, and asks the viewer to choose what he should do, with several alternative endings.
The videos are being promoted online, as well as through a cross-country campus tour. For each video view, Colgate-Palmolive Canada is donating $1 to Movember, up to a maximum of $50,000. As of press time the video had over 13,000 views, with over 5,000 unique visitors to the Speed Stick site.
Creative for the campaign is by Real Interactive, with media by MEC, experiential by 6degrees and videos by The Biz Media.
Agencies are also getting in on the mo-growing. For instance, Mosaic has created an internal campaign called “United we MO” that includes an online video, posters and bathroom decals, in an effort to raise $25K for the cause. With files from Emily Wexler